Category Archives: Fat

Chocolate Chip Pancakes. Lots of Them.

Posted on 14 January 2010 | 6 comments

Tonight I went with an old friend to IHOP, so I could fill out a form for her. She wants to be in ministry/leadership training at her church. She goes to Madison Park Church, which has the most janky survey/recommendation sheet that I have ever seen for ministry positions in a church their size. Despite the fact that this sheet was for lay-ministry positions, you would think that a church like theirs would be able to actually use proper grammar and spelling on its forms. Also, I wanted to ask whoever decided to put some of the questions on the form, would any of the disciples or early church leaders have qualified for leadership positions in your church?

Seriously, the first question asks if the person is clean, hygenic, and dressed appropriately. Well, sorry, John the Baptist, but your camel skin loin cloth just doesn’t cut it, so we’ve not approved you for leadership. And, it’s a little creepy the way you keep eating locusts and yelling about straight paths.  It scares the children, so we think you might consider simply being a parishioner rather than trying to be a leader.

The second question leaves Peter out: does this person have an appropriate attitude for ministry? Because Peter, Paul, John, and other disciples/early leaders always maintained proper attitudes and played fair. How many ministry partners did Paul go through?

I don’t remember all of the questions verbatim, but the third question pretty much excludes anyone who takes the verse that says, “If anyone comes to me, and does not hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, and even his or her own life, that person cannot be my disciple,” to heart. That Scripture, Luke 14:26, also throws out the question about mental health. Hating yourself is probably a sign of some mental illness, which theoretically disqualifies someone from leadership. I assume if the questions aren’t designed to weed people out based on their unfavorable characteristics, then they wouldn’t be asked. 

At any rate, I had lots of chocolate chip pancakes. It really makes no sense to run and bike and watch what I eat and then turn right around and eat seven pancakes covered with delicious chocolate chips and whipped cream. I couldn’t help myself; they had me at “All You Can Eat Pancakes 24 Hours a Day”! I also have two chocolate, chocolate chip pancakes in the refrigerator for breakfast tomorrow. Mmmm.

On the way to my house after dinner, we were talking about ethical corporations. I need to think more about my feelings toward companies attempting to live ethically. It is certainly one thing for a person to try to make ethical choices, but it is entirely another for an entire (sometimes multi-million dollar, several thousand employee) company to consistently make ethical choices.

It was interesting to hear Julie’s take on this topic since she has an MBA from Notre Dame. For the most part, I think we agree on this, but I am a little more strict on what I think it means to be an ethical business. Mostly, I think this is due to the fact that I want to hold companies to an individual ethical standard, forgetting that they are trying to make broad-scale decisions for many people and with a much more broad-sweeping impact on the world. Probably it is due to my lack of business experience and over-concern with some ethical issues.

I forget how difficult it is for me, as one person, to hold to my own created ethical standards. It must be infinite times more difficult for an entire company to uphold a consistent ethic. It’s sort of like extrapolating personal choices out multiple times and expecting them not to get watered down. How much more difficult is it to get a large group of people to buy into ethical ideas and behaviors and then to maintain those standards while still being able to make a profit? I would argue quite a bit.

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I am thankful that Jesus doesn’t require a questionnaire, and that I expect a certain level of corporate ethics from all businesses I support.

Exercise: walked from Burris to Puerto, from Burris to RB

Food: banana, juice, granola bar, potato enchiladas, rice, chips and salsa, decaf tall soy caramel macchiato, peanuts, chocolate chip pancakes

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Posted in Fat, Food, Grace, Relationships, Religion, Running

January is coming. Hide the sweets!

Posted on 28 December 2009 | Leave a comment

Today is December 28. 2010 is only three days away. My how time flies, some people say, but I think time drags like a three toed sloth walking through molasses in April. I just want to be about five years out from now, so I can see if all of this is really worth it. What will I be doing in five years? I would like to know, but time insists on dragging its slow ass along instead of speeding up. In short, time is me when I am running. It is not Zola Budd. It is not Flo Jo. In fact, it isn’t even your local cross country hero. Time is slow, fat, and dawdling along. Do you get it? Are you picking up what I am putting down? Is this extended and overwrought metaphor helping you to understand that I would like for this chapter of my life to speed the fuck up?!? Okay. I will stop belaboring the point.

I can’t wait for the holidays to be over, so I can return to a normal schedule. My body is in some kind of shock right now because of all the food (no matter how healthy) I have eaten, the way my sleep patterns have been destroyed, and because my body flat out does not like all the sugar I have been consuming. On Friday, after my brother and I run our “First Annual New Year’s Day Run in Circles for Fun,” I am going to purge all the unhealthy snacks from the cupboard and work on losing this other 50 pounds, some of which is the same 45 pounds I had lost since June, which crept back on somehow (no doubt via mint M&Ms and Christmas Nougats, damn them). Regardless, I am going to get rid of this weight if for no other reason than being able to run faster.

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I am thankful that Bec is going back to school, and I can’t wait until she can set up her own nursing practice!

Exercise: For the past few days, I have pretty consistently run two or three miles and walked the dogs three miles. Today I simply walked the dogs two miles, running with them for about 3/4 of a mile.

Food for today: decaf Americano so I could break a $20 and have money for parking, orange juice, chocolate milk, salad with honey mustard and sunflower seeds, grilled cheese, some sweets and ice cream, spicy lentil soup, diet cream soda, garlic bread

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Posted in Fat, Food

Fat. Thin. It’s Relative.

Posted on 9 November 2009 | Leave a comment

Today two different people told me that I look thinner. This wouldn’t be strange except for the fact that I am having a fat day. I feel like I keep running and never losing any weight, so it was nice to hear that I at least look thinner. I am not trying to lose weight for the sake of losing weight, but I am trying to get rid of some of the fat that holds me back from running any faster.

If you weigh around a hundred and fifty pounds, imagine putting on a backpack that weighs anywhere between 50 and 70 pounds. Now run six miles. This is how I feel when I run. Lugging around extra weight holds me back and make me reconsider any type of fat advocacy that I may have previously endorsed. Oh, I still believe that fat people should be treated equally, but I am not sure that I can be fit at any size. I don’t feel healthy when I am fatter; in fact, I feel like I don’t want to do anything, sort of lethargic, like my body just wants to remain sedentary.

I feel much healthier than I did even six months ago. I am sure it is both my increased level of exercise and my new diet, but I can’t ignore the fact that I have also lost 40 pounds in that same time. Either way I feel better than I did in June, so I will keep running regardless of how I look in the mirror. Thanks, though, for the encouragement.

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Exercise: walked the dogs about 3 miles, ran 2 miles, rode my bike to Burris and home

Food consumption: banana, juice, oatmeal, Clif bar, chocolate milk, apple, whole wheat pasta with spicy portabello-basil-pine nut sauce, salad, whole grain bread, pumpkin bread, three Twizzlers, a handful of M&Ms, a handful of almonds

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Posted in Fat, Food, Running

10K. Another 10K. Italian Food. So Much of It.

Posted on 11 October 2009 | 1 comment

On Saturday, I ran my first 10K. For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know that means I really jogged a 10K, but saying jogged isn’t nearly as sexy as saying ran. So, I ran my first 10K. I finished. Last. Dead last. All said and done, the run took me an hour and twenty-four minutes, which is approximately 13.5 minutes per mile, not so bad for a fat kid. I came in third in my age group. I won a ribbon, a ribbon I promptly lost on the way home. Because I don’t have a car and so my legs wouldn’t be rubber today, I rode my bike to the race. On my way home, my ribbon fell out of my sweatshirt pocket. I am not sure where. I didn’t bother to go back and look. I love it that I came in dead last, but still got a ribbon! Magic. And all good things.

Today is Bec’s fiftieth birthday. The big 5-0. We celebrated by spending time with Ed, Abs, and Iz yesterday and by going to the Salamonie Reservoir to hike about 5.5 or 6 miles today. We started this new tradition last year when it was almost 80º. This year it was less than 50º, but the hike was still excellent. Actually, it was perfect. We walked along the tree trail, which is a trail that has all the tress marked for the students who are supposed to do leaf collections for school, and then cut over to the Kon-Ti-On-Ki Bike Trail. I suppose Kon-Ti-On-Ki is some pseudo-American Indian name, but I think it means Government Mind-Fuck or Big Brother is Watching You because the trail just folds over on itself again and again. Each time we walk it, I swear there is someone hovering slightly above the trees, checking to make sure we follow the path. I am waiting to get shocked for stepping out of bounds.

Once we finished hiking, we drove to Fort Wayne and had dinner at Casa! Ristorante. The food was fantastic, but there was so much of it that we both have at least two meal’s worth of food left over. Right now, I am sitting here watching the Travel Channel’s Extreme Pigout and wondering why we find it necessary to make foods like the ones shown. One restaurant offered two pancakes, each a foot in diameter, topped with a half pound of strawberries, two bananas, and a half-cup of chocolate chips. The order of pancakes is over 2000 calories. For breakfast.  Do we need to wonder why people keep getting fatter? When did it become cool to stuff yourself silly? I mean, the Romans did it once in a while at an orgy, but overindulging every day for every meal is almost certainly an American invention. I get tired of going out for dinner, paying an exorbitant price, and then having food left over that won’t taste anywhere near as good the next day. Pasta and pizza are passable, but most foods are simply not edible (or tasty) a second time around. I would much prefer to pay a bit less and get an actual portion of food. And one that tastes delicious. Don’t get me wrong, our food today was great. In fact, it was one of the best Italian meals I’ve had in a long time, but there was so much! It’s in the fridge now for tomorrow’s lunch. And Tuesday’s lunch.

The coming week is sure to be less hectic than the last, but I am sure it will have its own busy moments. I have several social meetings this week, as well as a couple of new school-related appointments. Tomorrow, I am having coffee with a woman from church after Abs and I have our first meeting for our creative writing group at Burris. Tuesday, I am meeting my friend, Stephanie, at the Blue Bottle for coffee if I don’t forget again! I am supposed to have narrowed down the books I plan to use and start a literature review for my dissertation, so I can meet with Debbie in a week. I know I need to read one book, because I think it will fit in well with my proposed topic. Finally, I need to get the book, Judith Butler’s Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?, for the group I am in so I can start reading it. Also, I just finished grading my students’ first set of papers, and their second set is due on Tuesday. Just when I thought things would slow down, they have sped right back up again.

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Posted in Dissertation, Fat, Food, Reading, Running, School, Teaching

I Believe…

Posted on 3 September 2009 | 4 comments
  1. people are inherently good.
  2. in smelling flowers.
  3. in watching butterflies.
  4. that if everyone rode a motorcycle, we would be a much more peaceful planet.
  5. in God.
  6. tattoos make skin beautiful.
  7. in sleeping for at least 9 hours each night.
  8. that tragedies happen for a reason.
  9. that we should share what we have with people who don’t have as much.
  10. in feeding homeless people.
  11. people live the best in community.
  12. in running.
  13. reading helps us to understand each other on a deeper level.
  14. what we eat matters.
  15. that beer is good.
  16. everyone should get paid the same amount.
  17. there should be no racism.
  18. that gay people should be allowed to marry.
  19. we should think for ourselves.
  20. people should say please and thank you.
  21. we should revere our elders.
  22. we should train our children up in a calm, guiding manner.
  23. in grace.
  24. people should listen when other people talk.
  25. people should answer the question, “How are you?” with an honest answer.
  26. you should be able to make change out of the offering plate at church.
  27. vanilla malts with frosted flakes and mini marshmallows are next to heaven in loveliness.
  28. I could eat pizza for every meal.
  29. swine flu is a government scare tactic to keep us paranoid.
  30. people should be able to dress comfortably for all occasions.
  31. clothing designers should learn that not all fat women are busty.
  32. we should spend time discussing ideas and not people.
  33. each year people should have to donate their most prized possession to a homeless shelter, domestic violence shelter, or children’s home.
  34. most ill-feelings can be cured by walking in the woods.
  35. squirrels really are out to get us.
  36. when people swim they release their stress into the water with each stroke.
  37. hormones kill brain cells.
  38. most good music was made in the late 60s, early 70s.
  39. diamonds are not a girls best friend.
  40. we should still talk about AIDS and other STDs in health class, and talk about ways other than abstinence to prevent them.
  41. every child deserves a happy childhood, but does not need to be spoiled to accomplish that childhood.
  42. in equal rights for all people.
  43. we throw away too much. We should be more frugal.
  44. Chuck Taylors and Five Fingers are the world’s most perfect shoes.
  45. in gleaning out of dumpsters.

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Posted in Beer, Fat, Feminism, Food, Grace, Motorcycles, Politics, Queer, Reading, Relationships, Religion, Running, School, Teaching, Writing